{-Kaylin-}

“You let him do what?”

She didn’t know what was more annoying—the fact Aymer and Noa didn’t seem to see the problem here, or that Allyna didn’t either. Aymer and Noa perhaps she could excuse. But Allyna? This was her brother they were talking about, and she went on eating half of the extravagant breakfast laid out for them.

Aymer’s response was rather simple. “He asked that you be kept here, where it’s safer. I saw no reason to disagree with him.”

“I don’t get why it matters so much,” Allyna remarked through her chewing. “I know he’s capable and you should definitely know, too. You’ve been with him for, what, fourteen lives? Sounds like a perfect time to figure out how good he is. It’s just a couple of monsters or something. With the way he took out the other ones, this’ll be a piece of cake for him.”

“It doesn’t matter what kind of strength I know he possesses,” Kaylin said. “Something else is wrong. We’ve always stuck together when we could. I know I can’t be as much help here as I could in other lives, but I’m sure there’s something more I could do than sitting here…”

She didn’t want to know that he got hurt—whether or not she really would’ve been able to do something if she was there. She told herself it was because they couldn’t lose him, their hero and only chance at defeating Dhymos; she knew it more specifically became she couldn’t lose him, afraid of having to navigate the world on her own.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Noa tried to reassure her. The caution in his tone suggested he partially understood where her feelings came from. “He asked me to keep you from going out there, so… as much as I can, I’m going to keep an eye on you. There’s something I kinda want to ask you about anyway…”

“What, want to come with us?” Allyna either had no sense of a filter or sounded that mocking on purpose. “Because, I hate to break it to you, but you’re practically twelve. You don’t even look like you’ve left some noble’s estate in your entire life. You’re not gonna make it a day—make that an hour—outside of Silvium.”

He first looked like he might’ve tried opposing, before simply turning his attention back to Kaylin. “Would you like talking in private somewhere? No one should be in the gardens and it’ll probably be nice out.”

“I’d like to know what you’re going to discuss if you don’t want me to be a part of it,” Aymer mumbled.

“You’ve got meetings,” Noa murmured back. “Besides, you wouldn’t like it. It’s… about one of her stories.”

Now that intrigued Kaylin enough to, just for a moment, distract her from her worry. “Well, I’ve finished eating. If you’re ready, then we can talk about it now.”

Noa nodded, got up, and showed her to where the garden was. They both walked past the exotic flowers and extravagant fountain like they were looking at their more mundane counterparts; Kaylin considered it nothing out of the ordinary personally, and all it told her about Noa was that he was well-accustomed to these signs of high nobility. Then again, there was definitely more to him than being a messenger boy.

He stopped at a bench shaded by trees, sitting down and gesturing for her to sit beside him. “I guess first I should thank you for listening to me. To be honest I didn’t really expect you to be so willing to come, even without telling you anything…”

She shrugged. “Well, it seems Rennyn doesn’t want me with him. I can’t do anything to help him, so I’m stuck here with nothing else to do but hear what you have to say.”

“Alright. This is going to sound completely random and totally weird, but…” He took a deep breath. “Do you… recognize me, at all?”

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Her answer was blunt and without hesitation. “No. I don’t recall ever meeting someone like you.”

“Not… even in those other lives you talked about?”

“You picked up on that part?”

“Well, yeah. You don’t exactly avoid mentioning it and it’s a little too far-fetched to be joking about all the time with such a straight face…”

“I suppose you’re right. But that doesn’t change my answer. I’ve never seen anyone that looked like you—a few with similar personalities, though I get the feeling that there’s more that distinguishes you from them. Not even Rennyn, Dhymos, or I have had the same appearance in all the worlds—we recognize each other with a feeling.”

“A feeling?” He looked like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to take that as a good or a bad thing. “Like… a ‘we’ve met before’ kind of feeling?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“Okay, so here’s the funny thing. I think… I feel that way about you and Rennyn.”

“That’s impossible,” she dismissed quickly, thinking he might take it as a reassurance. “It’s always been the three of us in these lives. No one else—not even other friends or family—are repeated from world to world. Even if some fragments of them have, you certainly aren’t one of them.”

“I—I know it sounds crazy, but I have a reason to believe it. I didn’t at first, I thought it was just that I’d seen someone similar or for some reason my brain decided I had. But when I thought about it, I… honestly felt like I had known the two of you before. I can’t remember what we did but I know we did something. Then I remembered a story that… my mom used to tell me, when I was a little younger.”

Kaylin hoped she made it clear she still didn’t believe anything he was saying; at this point, though, she wasn’t sure if it was logic keeping her from accepting it or what other implications it might lead towards. Still, she showed that she was listening, and with another deep breath Noa continued. This didn’t seem to be the easiest topic for him.

“It was the one she’d tell the most often and she’d usually mention was passed down our family even if… it never really mentioned any of them. She told me one last time the… night before my parents died. She insisted I remember it, too—like she knew she wouldn’t be able to tell it again… In the story, the world was in ruin—great monsters unknown to these lands, dangers above anything we’re capable of handling. And rising from the ashes of the broken world was a hero, with four other companions. They found the source of the great evil and tried to stop it, but they failed.

“So, after the hero and his companions failed to defeat the evil, they were separated. Two found each other quickly but the other three’s actions were muffled in the chaos. It wasn’t until two spirits—Elidia and Dalleira, I think my mom called them—guided the hero to them that all five saw each other again. They had no memory of what they’d done before, but… they still knew who each other was. The friendship they once had still lingered somewhere, reemerging when they were reunited. Together, they were able to defeat the evil once and for all. The world never saw a threat like that again.”

He took another deep, calming breath. “And… I think there was a reason my mom told me that story. I recognize you and Rennyn. I think that, if you focused a little more, you might recognize me, too.”

Kaylin’s first thought was to immediately deny it. They’d been the only constants in fourteen other lives—there was no way there were supposed to be three more. But… he’d mentioned Elidia and Dalleira, names that people here had no reason to remember. She wouldn’t say that she found the story familiar, though with the way she contemplated it, she knew there was a truth behind it.

And, looking at Noa’s face, his resolve mixing in with the perplexity they shared… she thought she recognized something in it. A companion she’d hate to acknowledge she forgot.

With the realization, she stood up suddenly enough to startle him. He must’ve been about to ask if he’d done something wrong, before she decided, “I’ll talk to Rennyn about this.”

“You’re really considering it?” Noa asked, disbelief showing no matter how hard he might’ve tried suppressing it. “Everyone else kinda just… shrugs off that kind of stuff…”

“Normally, I would. But I… think you’re right about something. If this has anything to do with Dhymos—which, according to your story, it likely does—then we need to be sure we’re doing what we need to in order to defeat him. Rennyn and I can sort it out once he comes back… and maybe we’ll make another trip to Elidia and Dalleira, just to make sure.”

At this point, it was either all completely true, or a rather elaborate ploy of Dhymos’s. Whatever the truth was, getting it wrong would have major and lasting consequences.

Honestly, Kaylin wasn’t sure which one she hoped it was, and could only pray that they ultimately made the right decision…